FieCrier
This is one of the worst horror anthologies I have yet to see (though Night Train to Terror (1985) has it beat, I think), and one of the worst movies I've seen. It isn't entirely terrible, though.According to the video box, there are "three devil's tales of evil on earth." This isn't quite accurate. The first part of the movie involves Satan's Queen being kidnapped by Ginger Lynn Allen. We then meet Satan and his Jester, and Satan has the Jester tell him some stories to get his mind off things. The first is "Demon of Death," about a satanic mass-murderer. The second is "Death Among Clowns." In between, we return several times to the Satan's Queen story. If you count the Satan's Queen story as one of the tales, then we have the typical three story horror anthology. If not (it isn't one of the tales the Jester tells), and we consider it part of the wraparound story, then there are only two. Her story seems to take place in some sort of fantasy sword-and-sorcery realm, rather than earth.Curiously, there is no real end or closure for the Satan's Queen story. I wonder if they lost the footage, and had to make do with what they had? Additionally, the Jester sets up a third tale, but we do not see that story begun or played out at all.Surprisingly, there is no nudity in the movie at all. This seems unusual to omit in a horror movie, particularly a low-budget one, most particularly one that stars a porn star! Amusingly, the video store I rented this from had a "Must be 18 to Rent!!" sticker on it."Demon of Death" was OK. A satanic mass-murderer picks victims randomly out of the phone book. The last one he selects is a twenty-year-old witchcraft-dabbling woman into horror movies and heavy metal, who lives with her parents. It's pretty mean spirited when the murderer is in her house, and fairly violent. The camera stays on some scenes too long (particularly the opening scene of the murderer in his own apartment). It also has some trouble with time, resorting to cutting to a clock several times, and relying on several "X months" and "X years" later title cards. The actors playing cops do OK at the house, but are pretty bad in the interrogation scene."Death Among Clowns" stars the author of The Howling novel, in apparently his only acting role. (Incidentally, the girl in the first story has a Howling IV poster in her bedroom.) He's an aging, alcoholic clown who gets fired and commits suicide. Mickey La Mort (aka "Death Among Clowns") meets his disoriented soul, who thinks he may still be alive and just hungover. No such luck!Satan has an irritating voice that is a bit hard to understand due to the vocal effects they did to it. The same is true of scenes where the "Demon of Death" speaks in a demon's voice. Mickey La Mort has a gratingly high cartoon character-like voice when he appears, and then it also changes into a demon-like voice when he transforms (turns away from the camera, then turns back) into a slightly more evil-looking clown.About the Satan's Queen story, the less said the better. It closes (without really ending) on Ginger Lynn Allen addressing the camera saying something about family.The music by Cinema Symphony's [sic] is pretty cheesy.Anyway, not too painful to watch, though I wouldn't watch it again, and wouldn't recommend it to any but the horror anthology completists.
Rusty-61
Does have some spoilers-I recommend you read this review instead of seeing the movie, however.This is probably one of the worst movies I've ever seen, and this is coming from someone who saw Battlefield Earth less than a week ago. I would actually rather sit through BE again -at least that one had some unintentional humor and was fascinating due to the fact that it cost 60+ million dollars and managed to look like a made for USA movie.I love anthology horror movies. I've seen almost of all of them, from excellent (Creepshow, Tales from the Darkside)to mediocre (Twists of Terror) to completely wretched, like this. I only saw one other anthology horror movie with only 2 stories, which was 2 Evil Eyes. From now on I'm going to steer clear of any that don't have at least 3, though 2 Evil Eyes was like Goodfellas compared to this thing.I knew I was in trouble when 1. the opening credits looked suspiciously like something someone did with some do-it-yourself home video kit they got from radio shack 2. when I saw it was shot on video and 3. when the 'bookend' story was so incredibly ridiculous and incoherent that I began to wonder if I had misunderstood the box and rented some...some...I don't know. The project for some film class they taught at the Learning Annex "Make Your Own Movie On Videotape for the Beginner, using your friends and relatives as actors" maybe.I don't even know how to DESCRIBE the bookend story, but it has to do with some satanic witch-woman who is going to be put to death by these ninja-looking guys dressed in white. Then, Ginger Lynn Allen shows up and makes some bizarre speech to the devil-woman (who looks like an 80's metalhead chick who is really into Ozzy) about (I think) being her sister. A painfully long amount of time later, we cut to Satan on his throne. His makeup looks like someone's theatrical make-up school project, and these two, uh, minions or something come in, looking like they are wearing Halloween masks they ordered from Fangoria (to give them credit, they look like masks on the higher end of the cost scale). He orders them to do something along the lines of retrieving his bride, In the meantime some jester comes to entertain him by telling really, really bad stories. Please note that I am making the 'storyline' sound much more coherent than it is.The first story is about some serial killer in his teens called 'the Demon of Death', who picks out his victims using the phone book. He picks a house with a mother and father their young metalhead/wicca daughter. You don't really know whether you are supposed to hate her or if she is the heroine. He comes in and kills everyone except her, the police burst in at the last minute and wound him. Around this time I was still waiting for something interesting to happen so I would actually be drawn into the story, or there would be some sort of suspense. The kid killer confesses, then gets taken to the chair. The set the execution room is on was so amateurish I was cringing. Meanwhile the metalhead chick is either praying, casting a spell, or doing some kind of seance, it's not really clear which. He gets executed and shows up at the chick's house. THis is due to some spell she cast for revenge, though it's never made clear what her ultimate goal was to the whole thing. He explains something to her, but unfortunately his voice is in that sort of synthesized, slowed-down standard satan/monster voice, to the point where I literally could not understand one word he said. So, I have no clue what in the hell (no pun intended) the payoff to that story was, or what the point was, if it even had one. Probably not.We cut back to the stupid bookend story with Satan on his throne in his Planet Of the Apes-style makeup (i.e. nothing on his face moves except his eyes, and his mouth moves maybe a tiny bit when he talks, if you look carefully). The ole satanic jester comes in after some more of the incoherent bride/sister/whoever plot. I have next to no idea what Satan was saying, since his voice also sounds like a series of belches. Much, much later, the jester goes to tell another story. FOr this one story only, I guess they remembered that this was supposed to have an anthology structure, since the jester says this story is called something like "Clowntown".
Though the exterior of "Clowntown" looks like a funhouse ride at a carnival, inside it looks like some old vaudeville theater (or at least that's what they tried to make it look like). Turns out Mr. Clown (his name may have even been "Chuckles") has, get this, a drinking problem! He sits in his dressing room, seeming to add the final touches to his makeup pretty well for a character that is supposed to be falling-down drunk. He's 'missin' his cues' and 'causin' them to lose business' due to his drinking, see, so the manager has to go in and fire him. This leads to an exchange so cliché ridden that causes the only unintentional humor in the movie, though I didn't exactly laugh out loud, I just kind of smirked in amusement. "But...how can ya do this to me, Charlie? Me and your old man, we started this gig together, see? I promise I'll lay off the sauce, but don't fire me...bein' a clown is all I know, don't ya see?" The manager fires him, which clearly leaves him no choice other than immediately hanging himself. Then it starts to not make sense again. Some sort of devil-clown appears in a puff of smoke, convinces Mr. Clown that he really is dead and not dreaming (shows him his body hanging there...what, did the first clown not think hanging himself would result in death) and proceeds to explain to him in an annoying high squeaky voice why he is going to hell. I don't even know how to describe how it ends other than saying the last two things that happen make NO sense whosoever, do not fit into the storyline, and are never explained. I kept waiting for something to happen to explain every thing, but it never happened.We go back to the stupid Satan bookend story, which makes even less sense than before. I was hoping there'd be a third segment that would be at least a slight improvement, and maybe make me not have entirely wasted my rental fee, but no. The bookend story just sort of dwindles off with no explanation, resolution, or payoff, and that's it!Do not rent this movie even to see how bad it is, no matter how tempted you are. It's not bad in a fun, MST300 way, just boring and badly made. You'll hate yourself much less if you rent "Battlefield Earth" instead. You'll thank me later.
